Tieline IP and HD Radio Go Hand-in-Hand

WAMU 88.5FM in Washington, D.C. is heavily committed to HD radio
and was the first public radio station to offer three digital
channels and an analog signal to listeners in Washington, D.C.,
Maryland and Virginia.

"Ray Davis has been broadcasting on WAMU since 1985 and he lives
75 miles from the studio, which made it difficult for him to
broadcast his show live six days a week," said Dick Cassidy,
manager of WAMU's dedicated Bluegrass Country station, which
broadcasts on 88.5-2 in full stereo HD. "We needed to find a
solution that would allow him to broadcast from his home studio in
Falling Waters, West Virginia."

"We heard some great reports about the Tieline codecs being used
by WXPN in Philadelphia for concert remotes, so we decided to give
them a try," said Dick. "We called the folks at Tieline and they
sent us a pair of demo Commander codecs to try out."

"We installed one of the codecs in Ray's studio and attached it
to a dedicated Comcast cable modem connection," he said. "The codec
connected to the studio in stereo at 192kbps over IP using the
Tieline Music Plus algorithm and the audio we sent was flawless. We
were so impressed we bought a field unit Commander codec for Ray's
place and a rack unit Commander for the studio."

"The codecs now provide the primary connection for Ray Davis'
show and he connects between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. each weekday and on
Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 pm," said Dick. "The quality is terrific
- it is very reliable and has never let us down."

"Our automation system at the studio switches directly to the
Tieline codec so all Ray has to do is dial in to connect and he's
on the air," he said. "The Tieline Commander at the studio sends
really low latency return program to Ray's codec so he takes his
cue from this feed."

John Holt, Director of Engineering at WAMU, has worked with Dick
in broadcasting for 30 years. "One of the most important things
about choosing the Tieline codecs was how they handled further
compression for HD transmission and Internet broadcasting," he
said. "The performance was outstanding and we didn't notice any
artifacts."

"HD has provided us with the best of both worlds," said Dick.
"We can provide tailored content to both our news and bluegrass
audiences - and Tieline codecs play a big part in making this
happen for us."